among the young. They read the story of Julian the Apostate, a work on the devilists of various epochs, they acquainted themselves with the worship of Baal, they took up the history of the mysterious Cagliostro, they scoured the pages of the books on black magic, kabal, translated portions from the records of the Holy Inquisition, from the epoch when the Inquisition was suppressing the devil-worshippers in Spain and the Netherlands. All these studies were fertilising the soil for the launching of a bacchanalian orgy of religious morals. Black Masses were said, at which Communion was administered in the form of human blood and other elements of the body, in an atmosphere of ghastly moral depravation.
There appeared priestesses of the Devil, recruited mostly from variety stars and prostitutes. From the depths of society came forward obscure figures of connoisseurs of devil-worship, popes deprived of their priesthood for profligacy and crime, drunken, outcast monies, some "scientists" who had studied all their lives the history of the different kinds of worship.
In Petersburg an ex-actress from Odessa, known by the name of Irene Helnzel, achieved fame as the priestess of devil-worship; her real name is unknown to me, but she was the head of the Bolshevik prison in Ufa, where she distinguished herself by appalling cruelty. Her licentiousness and her terrible, blood-stained past have given to this priestess of Satan a peculiar charm and fame. She is frequently invited
